My clients hear me say this a lot: failing to plan, is planning to fail.

Whether your goal is to get more active, improve performance in a sport, lose weight, gain muscle or rehab an injury, having a solid well laid out plan is vital for helping you achieve it.

Take a second to think about the areas of your life where you excel and are most successful. Perhaps you’ve always progressed and climbed the ladder in your career, or you run a profitable business or take care of a busy household — whatever area it is you have succeeded in, I would hedge my bets that it didn’t just happen by chance. No one is that lucky! More likely, a lot of consistent hard work and planning, in one form or another, went into getting you where you are today.

The same certainly goes for reaching optimal health and fitness and achieving your physical goals.

From my own experience and those of the hundreds of people I’ve worked with personally, I know that when we consciously start planning a workout schedule as well as a weekly meal plan, this is when real progress and noticeable changes occur. If you have a plan, you’re taking a lot of guesswork out of what you should be doing on a daily basis and you have a clearer path that will take you towards your goals.

Now I know it may sound time-consuming — like you haven’t already got enough to do! — but I would argue that the things we spend our time on dictate what is important to us.

So here are the questions you need to ask yourself: how important to you is your health? How important is it that you reach your physical goals? How important is it that you make the changes necessary for you to be healthier and happier?

There are a few things you can try to do that make creating and sticking to a plan much easier. The good news is that in the long run, planning can actually save you time; it’s just like any new habit, it takes some time and consistency to cultivate at first.

These are my top tips to help make the process easier:

• Schedule a time each week to plan what you’re going to eat for the week. I find using an app like MyFitnessPal is useful for quick planning as it stores all my favourite foods and recipes in the correct portion sizes.

• From your plan you can create a shopping list. Schedule a specific time to go to the grocery store and only buy what’s on your list. Warning: don’t go shopping when you’re hungry, that’s a one-way street to diet sabotage!

• Wash, chop and prepare all your fruits and veggies in advance and store them in glass containers until you need them.

• Cooking in bulk is a big time saver. Portion meals up and freeze or refrigerate what you don’t need immediately.

• Keep your meal and workout plan in a visible place so you can easily be reminded of what you need to do.

Some of these tips may sound simple, and they are, but I can assure you that implementing a plan and consistently following it can make all the difference between you achieving your goals and completely missing the mark. So give it a go.

If you feel a bit bewildered by what it is you should be doing and don’t know where to start with putting together a plan that’s right for you, I definitely recommend seeking the advice of a qualified trainer.

Becky Wright is a qualified personal trainer, nutritional therapist and international bikini fitness champion. She has worked with clients worldwide, including royalty. Becky works at Alchemy Fitness. Contact her via e-mail: becky@alchemy.bm.